Walking the Weinsteig Rheinland Pfalz, Germany Stage 4: Deidesheim to Neustadt an der Weinstraße

Walking the Weinsteig: Deidesheim to Neustadt an der Weinstraße Stage 4: 15.5 km; 5 hours; 650 m climb 
February 28, 2016 Weather, dry, cool (9°C), overcast
This stage is fairly strenuous with plenty of scenic variety, including good views over the vineyards south of Deidesheim. The little town has attracted artists and as we walked towards the old Town Hall with its tremendous steps we noticed amusing and atractive sculptures adorning several buildings. Of course if you are with a group or children the figures around the fountain near the station require a stop. We dragged ourselves away from the beguiling menu boards and angled left then into the narrow streets lined with stone cottages. Soon the houses petered out, the road climbed gently between high stone walls on the edge of vineyards and became a rough track. Shortly we left the shelter of the vines, climbing into meadows, and up a wide grassy slope. A glance back revealed that we were already high above Deidesheim and approaching the Pfalzblick restaurant 200m ahead. a popular lunch stop, especially at weekends. Soon we are back in the familiar mix of pines and chestnuts climbing easily, then back down to a small white chapel, the Klausenkapelle, where there are occasionally services. Up again above the village of Königsbach, with its notable church tower. Maddeningly there is a steep descent down steps, with fragile wooden handrails right into the churchyard. We contoured along a series of alleys to an open view of vines, with Gimmeldingen village ahead below. This is a pleasant snack stop with a few picnic bench, especially if the magnificent rose bushes are in flower to attract bees (to fertilise the vines). Though a cold Spring this year, almond trees were flowering around Gimmeldingen. The festival in celebration, with stalls, vino tasting and local foods was postponed until later in March (still very chilly). Our trail headed steeply uphill partly up irregular stone steps. We were feeling quite perky until we reached the steps and climbed to Meerspinnblick, where there is a wooden shelter. Hunger suddenly struck both of us so we perched on a convenient bench where various walkers wished us "Guten Appetit" as we ate our lunch.
We had forgotten the rather demoralising drop into and along the valley deeply into the woods. From  Forsthaus Benejental the real work of the day began, up, along, up into the Scots pine and heather clad hills towards Weinbiethaus. Fortunately we were encouraged by various signposts and indeed  distances and the additional climbing needed did get smaller. En route great blocks of stone and weathered outcrops, clumps of heather and chestnut trees gave way to eerie looking Scots pines and even traces of snow. Eventually the low welcoming restaurant building of Weinbiethaus appeared with the stone tower behind.
Maybe it was the anticyclonic gloominess of the day but both of us were glad to reach Weinbiethaus at 554m, our highest point yet reached on this Weinsteig trip. This is a restaurant run by the Pfalzerwald Verein (Club), not to be missed with excellent hearty meals, drinks, plus homemade cakes, teas or coffees. It was reopened only recently after extensions and rebuilding. As usual we chatted to our neighbours at the long table before tucking into large mugs of milky coffee and sustaining portions of cheesecake (German style).
The determined walker can continue at high level along the marked Weinsteig trail for 7.7km, to the rocky outcrop of the Bergstein, with great views over Neustadt, then a steep descent into the town. The less determined walker can take the shorter (4km), but still interesting route more directly into Neustadt. That February day we had decided to be less determined walkers, despite the calorific input of coffee and cake so we hoisted our packs and followed blue and white striped symbols on the southern side of the Meisental valley. Parts of the trail and several thousand trees had been laid waste but the 'harvesters' and their machines were gone. With a little extra care we reached the outskirts of Neustadt where many sets of steps further tested our knees. Neustadt an der Weinstraße is a real town of some 30 000 souls, one of the many Neustadts in Germany dating back to the 12th century. It is well worth a visit, but that February day we legged it through the town, past the large church and over to the station, catching a train to Mannheim 10 minutes later.

Insert head in figure as appropriate, Deidesheim fountain

Imposing steps to the old Town Hall, Deidesheim

Steps into the vinyards too

Klausenkapelle

 J struggles down the steps

 Almonds bloom despite cool temperatures

Roses attract pollinating bees in sumer

The way of the steps

Neustadt, so near and so far down

A few thoughts on step counters/pedometers

I decided to buy my wife a SILVA step counter for Christmas some years ago. It was a good way of checking how far we walked. It cost around €24. A year later Judith bought me one. The devices fastened to our belts. If the counter was not almost vertical it didn't seem to function well and gave ridiculously low values. We could live with this although it was a bit fiddly.

We went canal boating two years ago and I attached the device to the belt of my old gardening jeans. When we returned it was bit late to garden and so the jeans and the step counter disappeared into the back of my wardrobe. I decided I'd lost it and picked up a low priced counter from Decathlon. The company had just opened a shop in Mannheim. If memory serves me rightly this cost €7 or €8. It didn't function well and was very sensitive to where it was placed on the belt. Decathlon no longer sell this device, at least in Germany. I am not surprised because Decathlon strike me as a company offering good value, decent, well functioning clothes and gear.

I read that the two step counters mentioned above were two dimensional pendulum devices and that three dimensional pendulum devices were superior. We bought to OMRON three dimensional step counters for about €20 apiece. These have the advantage that they can put in pocket, even a shirt pocket or hung on a belt. We are most impressed. The counters deliver similar data to GPS devices. We can recommend them highly. 

We have no connection with any of the companies mentioned.

Food in Germany country inns

The food in these restaurants and pubs is normally very simple but wholesome and the portions are enormous. If you stop for lunch or dinner then order a Senioren (pensioner) or a klein (small) portion. If you don't you will not be able to walk afterwards.
This is a small schnitzel with cheese sauce and Bratkartoffeln (sauteed potatoes):

A vegetarian on our table ordered noodles with tomato sauce and had trouble finishing:

If we are wrong then you can tuck into a small cake afterwards:

Buying a new Rucksack/Backpack

My first rucksack was an army surplus "Commando" rucksack, bought about 1953. The bag was made of dark green canvas, rubber coated on the inside. The frame was steel. The rucksack was heavy even when empty. It was pear shaped. It was tough. I spent twelve weeks touring the USA in 1963. The rucksack was thrown into Greyhound bus luggage lockers and survived ten thousand miles of being bounced around. I left the rucksack at my parents' house when I moved to Germany and 20 or so years after I was given it my father passed it on to the kid next door when the boy needed a rucksack to go to a Boy Scout camp. It's probably still in use. I packed my stuff in any old way. Some time later I learnt that the weight should be packed so that it was high on the shoulders. Adjustment was easy, you just tightened the carrying straps to raise it up. There was no waist belt.

(Mine was dark green. The photograph is from http://www.granniesloft.co.uk/ where it is or was for sale for £50.)

Time went on and my wife and I had ten rucksacks, most of them day sacks and four large ones. We've decided this year to go walking in the Pyrenees. We will be carrying our own gear and so wanted lighter rucksacks than the bigger ones and more volume than the day sacks. We have just bought two Deuter SLs - women's rucksacks that can be raised up and down on the frame, also backwards and forwards. Fitting the rucksack resembles a trip to Saville Row for a new suit. Fine tuning is the order of the day. The woman's rucksack is just for short people. We both are short. The amusing thought is will they be worth more than we paid for them in sixty years time?

Umbrellas for walkers

We walked through the Odenwald forest on Sunday. It was wet. A slow moving cold front dropped  several litres per square metre of rain on the Odenwald. We had bought two Euroschirm (www.euroschirm.com) telescopic trekking umbrellas earlier this year after leaving one old gamp on a train and having another invert itself on the same day. This was their first taste of action. We were both impressed. We unlike others in the party with capes and rain jackets were reasonably dry by the end of the day.

Walking in the southern Black Forest Day 6 St Blasien to Todtmoos

The view from our hotel window

Open fields and forests

The "monster" at work

The Fairy Glen

Another wonderfully sunny morning, though some of the "spectacle viewers" of the night before, a little short of sleep, had a somewhat jaundiced view of the world. We walked through the town and could stock up on a sandwich for lunch, before diving under the bypass to climb steeply over Lehenkopf with the Bismarck Tower. There were already excellent views of the cathedral and the cloister buildings, so we did not climb the tower, but made our excuses and left. We walked down into the pub at Klosterweiher where we enjoyed a Radler before climbing 2km to the Kreuzfelsenhutte shelter hut to eat our sandwiches. We could have had lunch in the pub, but a beer  and a large lunch slows us up even more in the afternoon. We continued on through forests and around fields containing a bull, a number of cows and calves to climb to the Peace Cross above Ibach where we were promised a view of the Alps. It is more than likely true on a cold clear day, but with the haze it was difficult to recognise anything, though J and C swore they could see snowy peaks through binoculars. We crossed open country and climbed into forest where we were treated to a display of modern forestry techniques. A monstrous machine was reducing large trees to matchsticks. After another a stretch of forest we crossed the main road to walk steeply into the Hohwehraschlucht  (Upper Wehra Gorge). The last part of the route before Todtmoos was an interesting path through a “fairy glen”, a babbling brook, pools and light and shad from a variety of trees.

Walking in the southern Black Forest Day 5 Fischbach to St Blasien

Breakfast at the hotel was reasonable but a bus party had played the flight of locusts just before us and pickings were rather thin. Neither baker nor butcher were within view as we left the Gasthof Hirschen, so we could not buy sandwiches for lunch. Our first priority was to buy victuals. The wide farm track by the hotel led to a gentle climb through the forest over Bildstein peak (1130m) where we had good views of Lake Schluchsee. We dropped down a winding narrow path down to Aha Bahnhof (Railway station) on the lakeside. The kiosk there was not yet open, so we went on to Aha and bought dry Brötchen (rolls) in the kiosk at the start of the hamlet. We still had a tin of sardines.  As we found out there was only one other chance before St Blasien to obtain refreshments. We walked round the lake on a wide unsealed road with many other walkers and cyclists, who were only going as far as the café at Unterkrummen (4km). After the café we climbed over Krummer Kreuz on forest roads. Although it remained dry the weather was overcast and much cooler. There were a number of traditional Black Forest farmhouses with their bonnet-like roofs stretching along the Halbmoosbächle Valley. In Althütte we caught glimpses of what we decided was Lake Constance. A steep drop past the Windberg Waterfall brought us into St Blasien on a pretty but difficult path, in another gorge much strewn with large trees blown down in a great storm. We arrived at the hotel by 16:00 and spent some time out in the town victualling, so did not have our usual late afternoon siesta. St Blasien was in the hands of amateur thespians, some of whom we observed over an excellent coffee and cake. The town organises an annual son et lumière event and that night was the first night. Our hotel, Dom Hotel was in front of the cathedral and at the back of the viewing stands, but within hearing distance. The event started at 21:15, finished shortly before midnight and the audience must have been glad of woolly jumpers and/or quilts. Temperatures were low below 10°C. I was worried I wouldn't be able to sleep, I dozed off while watching the beginning and slept well until early the next morning.

Climbing out of Fischbach

First view of Lake Schluchsee

Black Forest farmhouse

Descending to St Blasien 

Walking in the southern Black Forest Day 4 Schattenmuhle to Fischbach

The hotel did not offer a breakfast buffet as was usual at the other hotels, but we had a good choice of ham, Wurst, cheese, jam and honey to go with rolls, bread, coffee and tea. There were no shops for miles so we enquired whether we could purchase three dry rolls to make our sardine sandwich lunch and were given three. We left the hotel and climbed steeply then followed a high level path via Räuberschlössle - the Robbers’ Little Castle which is the remains of a castle on a peak later taken over by gangs of low life types. It would be an ideal place to set a Swallows and Amazons story. We walked on and passed the Stallegg hydro power station, one of Germany’s first hydropower stations. It did not appear to be functioning when we were there. The dam was empty. Perhaps the station was being maintained. During the next kilometers into Lenzkirch crisscrossing a former railway line now used as a cycleway it seemed that we no sooner reached the summit than we dropped again in order to climb back up again. I suspect it is better to follow the cycle path into Lenzkirch and would have done this but my companions had moral fibre. We had to walk the whole route with no compromises. We had a coffee break in the Kurhaus before we began the long climb to Fischbach over Fischerbacher Höhe (1101m). Initially it was very pleasant in the shady woods up to the Geopark with its mini library and chunks of local rocks, but when we came out in the open fields by the Cyriak Chapel walking there was some sweating and puffing. The road seemed to go on forever. We dropped into Fischbach and arrived at the Gasthof Hirschen after 22.5km with 600m climbing. We very were pleased to be offered a Radler as a welcome drink.

The library at the Geopark site

Discussing erratics

Nothing better than a shandy after a long day

Walking in the southern Black Forest Day 3 Blumberg to Schattenmuhle

Schleifenbach

Wutachmuhle

In the gorge

We had trouble with the Hotel Hirschen’s WiFi system. This may be related to the devices we were using: mobile phone, netbook or e-book reader. Whether this is a language problem, because our devices use English or whether the signal was not strong enough, we don’t know. In our experience it is not easy to use WiFi away from home as we found in several hotels underway. This is a plus point in our opinion. However mobile phone coverage in the gorge is very patchy as well, perhaps the perfect excuse when the boss complains that you could not be reached. More importantly, we enjoyed an excellent buffet breakfast, bought three filled rolls for lunch at €4 for the lot and walked back onto the trail. All of our hotels were within a few hundred metres of the trail. We followed Hauptstrasse west and then walked straight on to go down a steep path on the left. After some zigzags with serious exposure we reached a ladder with about 20 steps by the Schleifenbach waterfall – an impressive dark cove of rock. A climb followed along a forest and field path to the pretty village of Achdorf. We walked through the village  to reach the fields; followed a minor road, then crossed the Wutach to go through woods and clearings to reach the Wutachmuhle, an old mill. We wandered through the timber yard to follow the path in to the narrow, twisty Wutachschlucht. The path is technically difficult from time to time over tree roots, climbs very steeply over loose greasy stones, drops to rock shelves by the river and returns high over the river with a cliff face on one side and a vertical drop on the other. It is a spectacular experience, certainly no after lunch Sunday stroll. The route is popular and was busy with walkers coming towards us which slowed us down on the narrower sections. There was a lot of up and down before the day ended in the remote Gasthaus Schattenmühle, cut off from the outside world. The kitchen closed at 8 pm. Carbo-loading was the order of the day, so we ate excellent Rösti , topped with pork steaks or Black Forest Ham, followed by Kaiserschmarren. Our room was simple, but after 20km  and 380m climbing in about seven hours it was all we needed.

Walking in the southern Black Forest Day 1 and 2 Stühlingen to Blumberg

Day 1
We drove down to Stühlingen and left the car there. We were lucky that our first hotel: Hotel Rebstock in Stühlingen was the epitome of the historic Black Forest inn, hotel staff in local costume. We ate very well on Saturday night. The food and drink complimented the amazing table decor.  
Day 2
We left early on Sunday morning after an excellent breakfast as the sky cleared and the sun came out. We walked along the German-Swiss border gently burping Black Forest Ham until we were diverted across the Wutach into Switzerland. There was logging on the German side. There were no border controls as Switzerland although not a member of the EU has signed the Schengen Agreement. The temporary signage was excellent. We crossed the line of the Sauschwänzle Bahn, the pig’s tail railway, a museum railway that climbs via a series of loop tunnels and viaducts up to Blumberg. As we looked at the halt buildings by the road side we heard the familiar noise of a steam train climbing the gradient towards us. We waited and watched a Rumanian steam locomotive probably as old as we are pull the morning train from Weizen to Blumberg. Gradually we climbed along the precipitous side of the Wutach Valley along a narrow, rutted and stony path. In the growing warmth of the morning we were grateful for the woodland. We were later amused to read a notice put up by the Black Forest Club explaining that this section was difficult and dangerous. We should take care and notice that the route is divided into sections to help the Bergwacht (Mountain Rescue) find us more quickly if we put a foot wrong. A little late we thought. The route lead us away from the valley over Buchberg Hill through open fields. It was very hot and we were glad to reach the forest on its upper slopes. We had a short break at the viewpoint overlooking the village of Achdorf which we would visit the next day and then wandered into Blumberg and the Hotel Hirschen. This was a much more modern hotel, but equally comfortable and with good food and excellent local beer. 

22km, 540m, Time taken: 8h

Walking in the southern Black Forest Introduction

Some months ago a former colleague suggested we spent a week walking this summer. We had been cycling together before, but I think she was tired of waiting for us at the top of hills and maybe she hoped we would be quicker on Shanks’ Pony. (We weren’t or at least I wasn’t) 

We thought we’d stay in Germany: There is a lot of excellent walking in Germany and we speak the language. After some thought we settled on the Schluchtensteig in the southern Black Forest. (For those who are not familiar with the language of Goethe: Schlucht is a canyon or a gorge. Steig is a steep track, i.e. Schluchtensteig is a track through a gorge. The route has been laid out by the Southern Black Forest Nature Park, and the Black Forest Club. It is 119km long and runs from tiny Stühlingen on the Swiss border to Wehr on the Upper Rhine. The route falls well into 6 days, i.e. about 20km a day. Fitter and faster walkers can complete it in five days, but the views are worth savouring. Most hotels on the route offer baggage transfer to the next hotel, but not a sag wagon that follows the walker, though some hotel landlords might take you as well as your bag if necessary. After looking at various possibilities we booked a trip with Kleins Wanderreisen GmbH. The company’s website and approach seemed to be a good one and we were not disappointed. We did “cheat” as a Canadian lady we met in Wehr suggested in that we did not carry our gear, but at 70 plus we are both beginning to enjoy some of the perks age brings. Our luggage went on before and we followed carrying day rucksacks.  

Post from the Ramblers about walking and cycling holidays in the Rhine Gorge

I was amused yesterday morning to get a newsletter from Ramblers' Holidays - the commercial end of the British Ramblers' Association. We have had a number of holidays with the Ramblers. All of them were good. Some were better than others. The newsletter was enclosed with a brochure on cruising and walking which was binned very rapidly. I have no desire to have to pack a penguin suit to eat dinner.

However the newsletter had an article by Martin Hesp, the Senior Features Editor of the Western Morning News about a holiday in Rüdesheim where he praises walking and cycling in the Rhine Gorge. We have been pushing the advantages of holidays in Germany for well over twenty five years: Prices are cheaper than in France. More people speak English. The food comes in huge portions, but is very similar to British tastes. The wine is reasonably priced and much underrated in Britain. The beer is wonderful. There are excellent networks of cycling and walking routes, backed up by good public transport.

Over the next few months we will try to describe some of the long distance walking routes to help Ramblers work out some more good holidays in Germany. Watch this space.